Thursday, June 29, 2017
180 - The Hidden Fortress, 1958, Japan. Dir. Akira Kurosawa.
Two creatures walk the barren desert in the midst of the war.
The tall one fancies himself the leader, and he treats the short one with sarcastic abuse.
Yet he needs him and cannot bear to be without him.
A coward, he pessimistically expresses their imminent doom.
They split up. They walk the desert separately. They are captured. They are reunited as prisoners.
Eventually, they will find themselves a part of a ragtag group containing a plucky mercenary as they try to help a princess fight to save her kingdom.
Do you know the names of the bumbling peasants?
No. They are not C3PO and R2D2.
They are Tahei and Matashichi.
Engaged in their antics twenty-three years before Star Wars. George Lucas did not merely admit that he had stolen from The Hidden Fortress; he celebrated it. He loved this film and wanted to pay it tribute.
The master Kurosawa has chosen to tell his story through the point of view of its lowest characters. He begins in medias res--in the middle of things--as the bumpkins continue their journey already begun.
A road movie, a buddy comedy, a swashbuckling action film, an epic adventure, a romance, a war movie, a Western, The Hidden Fortress is a film of films.
Oh, and we might also mention it is a Samurai film.
Now, if only they can find that gold.
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